


She's Doing Fine All The Time

by Yung_Mofftiss (OnWednesdaysWeStudyinPink)



Category: Fringe, Music RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-27
Updated: 2011-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 17:18:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnWednesdaysWeStudyinPink/pseuds/Yung_Mofftiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not every conversation Phillip has had in a bar has been depressing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She's Doing Fine All The Time

*****

Phillip doesn’t know what he’s still doing here at three in the morning, but he couldn’t bear to be alone in his flat any longer and he didn’t feel comfortable traveling all the way to New York just to be with Nina, so he walked a few blocks away to a small bar he occasionally frequented. At this hour the bar is empty and he has the privilege of enjoying a scotch in absolute peace.

He’s only halfway through his first drink when a young woman enters and sits down to his right; she’s wearing an oversized leather jacket that has every inch of it covered in pyramid studs. For a moment he wonders if she’s actually old enough to drink—she looks as if she’s practically a child—but decides he could actually give a fuck about a teenager drinking. It’s the bartender’s job to worry about that, after all. She looks vaguely familiar, but she doesn’t seem to recgonise him, so he assumes they don’t actually know one another. She glances over at him and offers a polite,

“Hello.”

“Hello,” he says back, not looking directly at her so that she’ll hopefully take the hint that he’s just here to drink.

But she doesn’t seem to notice the standoffish body language and she peers at his drink, asking curiously, “What are you having?”

With anyone else it might have sounded like a pickup line, but there was nothing flirtacious about the way she said it, so he replied helpfully, “Scotch. And sugar.”

“I think that’s what I need, too.” She gestures at his drink while nodding at the bartender, who nods back.

As a rule, Phillip doesn’t talk to strangers mostly because he doesn’t want to have to invest himself in anyone else’s problems, but the woman begins to speak to him amicably and he starts to wonder if she’s just chatty or already drunk.

“Today was too long. Like, I’m pretty sure I entered some sort of snag in the fabric of space and time and everything around me was becoming slower and slower while the world outside was moving at its regular pace…” She glances over at him and gives an embarrassed smile. “Haha, and you’re probably thinking I’m some wacko.”

He decides she’s simply chatty and figures he can break his own rule about talking to strangers this once as she’s not being depressing. “No, just a little surprised. I have to listen to scientific theory all day long from a scientist and that sounds like something he would have brought up.”

She appears to approve of what he’s bringing to the conversation and flicks her long, claw-like fingernails across the countertop. “He could probably figure out five ways everything I just said is wrong.”

He nods. “Probably.”

The bartender brings her scotch over along with three white packets of sugar and a stir stick.

“I wonder if anyone’s invented something that can measure time,” she ponders, shaking the sugar packets before tearing them open.

He raises an eyebrow slightly. “A watch?”

She pours the sugar into her drink and stirs it up enthusiastically. “No, I mean, something that can check to see if time is moving slower in one area compared to another.”

He shrugs slightly. “That would be interesting.”

From her jacket comes an odd beeping noise and to his surprise, she doesn’t pull out a cellphone, but a pager. She glances down at the number and then sets it out on counter, removing the batteries. “Whoops.” “I haven’t seen one of those in years,” he observes before taking another sip of his drink.

“Yeah…I always thought they were kind of cool. It also gives me the excuse that I don’t have to text back right away if I don’t want to.” She slumps over onto the countertop, arms folded on the cool surface and lays her head on them. She turns slightly and looks up at him. “God, can you believe it’s only  _Tuesday_?”

That exact thought had been running through his head since midnight. “That’s what I was thinking.”

Their conversation pauses for a moment as they both notice the bright flashing to their left; there’s a tv at the other end of the bar that’s been on since he arrived and it’s showing breaking news of about some sort of accident that’s happened.

“Wow.” She nods her head at the television. “I feel bad for whoever has to deal with that.”

“So do I,” he says, knowing that his cell phone is ringing exactly for this emergency. He answers with a flat, “Agent Broyles.”

The person on the other end is one of the Fringe Division’s gofers who mans the phones during the hours the Fringe agents have gone home. “Sir, I’m sorry I’m calling you so early, but there’s been an accident at the Zakim Bridge. It looks Fringe related.”

He suspected as much. “I’ll be on my way.”

He shuts the phone and puts it back in his pocket, looking over at the strange young woman he’s been conversing with. She winces, nodding her head up to the television.

“Your mess?”

He gives her a grim smile. “It is now.”

Standing up from the bar stool, he begins to pull out his wallet, but she waves his money away and pulls out her own.

“No, I got it.”

Under normal circumstances, he would never allow a stranger to pay for his drink, but he doesn’t really have time to argue, so he simply nods his appreciation. “Enjoy your Tuesday.”

“You, too.” He’s halfway to the door when she shouts after him. “Hey! Will you find out if time really does move slower in some areas? Just so that at least one of us knows?”

He raises his eyebrows once more, but nods. “I will.”

She smiles at him. “Thanks.”

**Author's Note:**

> Um, just an excuse to see the Fringeverse version of Lady Gaga. She's obviously OOC—a little sciency, ingeneu.


End file.
